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Yes indeed, old Colonel Nathaniel Rochester certainly picked an ideal location for a city.

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He really started something. Industries have developed here that have made the name Rochester synonymous with quality and precision manufacturing.

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A veritable who's who in American business.

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Industrial pioneers such as George Eastman, Edward Bausch, and Henry Long founded local concerns whose diversified products are now bought and sold everywhere.

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A tradition of fine craftsmanship developed here, attracting quality industries and quality people alike.

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Skilled industries, skilled people.

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Clean industries, clean people.

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Stable industries, stable people.

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Diversified products, not only those in present production, but those in the dream stage, those still swirling around in some inventive mind,

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demand an educated workforce, adaptable, swift to understand change and technological improvement.

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Change is necessary to keep competitive in industries as well as cities.

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If you don't change, change will change you.

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Technological lag is tantamount to slow death.

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Rochester recognized this fact years ago and developed a program of training and retraining the workforce.

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And again, not only to keep the workforce abreast of the times, but to keep it ahead of the times.

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There is a positive passion in people here for going to school.

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An incredibly contagious fervor, almost furor, to learn more than they know about everything possible.

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Genesee fever again.

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There is a profusion of educational facilities, graduate as well as undergraduate,

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developing diversified talents necessary to attract and hold diversified industries.

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Many of these institutions are generously endowed from the profits of local enterprise.

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Rochester's colleges attract people from all over the country, and they generally stay here.

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Industries too.

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When you come right down to it, what brings a prospective industry to a prospective location?

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More than anything else, it is an enlightened workforce.

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In this respect, Rochester is second to none, for clean industries that is,

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for industries requiring a high percentage of professional, technical, skilled and semi-skilled personnel.

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Naturally, a prospective industry will have other requirements.

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Sites zoned for industry. Rochester has them.

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Industrial parks circling the city, and right in the downtown area.

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Urban renewal and redevelopment at its best.

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Replacing the old with the new, within view of the heart of the city.

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Coordinated fire protection throughout Rochester and Monroe County is rated the third best in the United States.

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There is an abundance of water, controlled abundance, from the upland lakes and Lake Ontario.

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A safe daily yield of 200 million gallons, with the Great Lakes as unlimited reservoir for any future demands.

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Utilities? Well, Rochester Gas and Electric Company for one is renowned for the quality of its services.

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In addition to gas and electricity, it supplies steam to the downtown area and to many other commercial and industrial customers.

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Active since 1952, with other companies engaged in nuclear research,

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RG&E will be ready with the know-how and the resources when economical atomic power can be applied to industrial and consumer advantage throughout the area.

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Industries, of course, are citizens of the community, the same as individuals.

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And here, both are expected to be good citizens, respecting the natural beauty of the Genesee setting.

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What's more, enhancing it.

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Is there any earthly reason for permanent scarring of the landscape?

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Any conceivable reason for ugly smoke belching into the sky?

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In Rochester, parks are parks, industrial or otherwise.

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There's a tradition of greenery, sunlight, fresh air, and the sheer joy of open space.

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Flowers.

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The flowers, friend, are phenomenal in Rochester.

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And I'm not just talking about the world's celebrated lilac festival each spring.

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I'm talking about the community compulsion to plant, wherever there's a square foot of sod that can stand brightening.

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Truly, the entire population seems born with or converted to the green thumb.

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Public gardens galore and private gardens galore, hillside patches, lyrical and lovely.

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Flowers.

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Flowers.

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Flowers.

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People here put down roots, too. So it is no surprising statistic that 70 percent of the occupied dwelling units in the Rochester area are owner-occupied.

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A family city is Rochester.

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Doing things together is the order of the day.

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All in all, there are upwards of 300,000 people in the city proper.

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Upwards of 300,000 people in Monroe County.

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Upwards of 350,000 people in the other eight counties of the Rochester economic area.

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Nearly a million population in nearly 5,000 square miles of land allows plenty of space to grow and grow healthily.

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For people living elsewhere, it is surprising perhaps that Rochester has what Leopold Stokowski called one of the finest orchestras in the world.

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It is not the least bit surprising, of course, to the people living here.

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They like good music and they support good music in the same manner and the same spirit that they achieve other community advantages.

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They get together a committee of conscientious citizens and raise the funds by popular subscription.

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Industries, as well as individuals, get behind the program and push, with the result of the cash, as well as the checks, comes rolling into the good cause.

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The same persuasive pattern exists whatever the community project.

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It may be the building fund for a new church or the building fund for a new school.

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Recently, the entire community joined in the drive for a new parochial school.

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Protestants, Catholics, Jews alike felt that school was a community cause.

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People here live and work in splendid harmony, harmony and respect.

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Small wonder Rochester received the World Brotherhood Award.

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Small wonder, too, the term community chest was coined in Rochester and that each year it exceeds its goal.

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Throughout the world, of course, Rochester is famed as a medical center.

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Hospitals, research laboratories, most of them supported by private funds, have pioneered many of the medical miracles of our time.

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Health insurance for an already healthy community and wonderfully reassuring to the senior citizens.

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Most of them stay here in their declining years.

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They love it here.

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They find plenty of satisfying activity to occupy their retirement, so it doesn't make much sense to them traipsing off someplace else.

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If necessary, of course, Rochester looks out for them.

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And here is a surprising statistic, at least in terms of other cities.

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In Rochester, only 50 percent of the cost of welfare is derived from tax money.

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The remaining 50 percent comes from voluntary contributions and other private funds.

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Conscientious citizens naturally produce conscientious government.

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The words of Jonathan Child, first mayor of Rochester, still echo sensibly in local ears.

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In the intercourse of social life and on all occasions involving the interests of our young city, let us forget our politics and our party and seek only the public good.

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Such philosophy has produced enlightened government, working with enlightened commerce.

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In other words, public funds are used to spark and to supplement private enterprise.

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Such action has revitalized the heart of the city, more specifically, downtown Rochester.

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As in most American cities, the tendency here in recent years was a withdrawal from the central core to the surrounding suburbs.

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People first, then business, headed for the open spaces.

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Rochester didn't fight the suburbs or the shopping centers rising to meet suburban needs.

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It simply capitalized on the things people like about shopping centers, wide varieties of merchandise, the fun of meeting people, and above all in this day and age, a place to park.

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Having made its peace with the automobile, Rochester was in a position to bring the suburbs downtown to the central core of the city.

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It can pack the Eastman Theater for a Broadway road show or musical festival.

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It can pack the War Memorial Auditorium for a hockey game or an international trade convention.

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Rochester Monroe County Civic Center pulls together as many functions of city, county, state, and national government as possible into one location, with easy access, of course, and plenty of parking space.

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Having made its peace with the past, Rochester can rip out and rearrange streets and sections of that central core to its heart's content.

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Here is another section that will feel the impact of the bulldozer.

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Surgery, tough yet tender, for Front Street in the future will be known as Genesee Crossroads, a complex of hotels and apartments, shops and offices, parks and promenades.

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Likewise in the future is the towering world headquarters for Xerox.

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Sidewalk engineers have a field day in downtown Rochester.

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That central core changes fast and furious, but not fast enough or furious enough for some of them.

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That Genesee fever still.

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It was at an all-time high during the construction of Midtown Plaza, 10 acres of renewal, and that hole in the ground seemed to stay there forever.

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Actually, that hole was the makings of a three-level, 2,000-car underground municipal parking garage.

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The city solved the traffic problem, and from there on, private enterprise took over.

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Up, up, up the girders went, the framework for a new 18-story office building and hotel.

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The framework for a new retail complex centered about a new, roofed, air-conditioned marketplace the size of a football field.

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Total time from the signing of the contracts to opening day celebration, 38 months.

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Total cost, $25 million of private investment.

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A beautiful dream, yes.

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A magnificent merchandising idea.

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But $25 million?

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Why would investors put up that kind of money for something like this in a city this size?

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Bankers here are clear-eyed and practical, the same as bankers elsewhere, and possibly more so.

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Why, oh why would financial genius go for sidewalk restaurants, benches, fountains, trees, flowers?

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They know the people of Rochester, that's why.

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Quality people in quality jobs, earning quality incomes, buy quality merchandise.

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The stability of the workforce in Rochester makes for stability of investment in Rochester.

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Midtown Plaza is simply the most dramatic ingredient of the Rochester recipe for good living.

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Thousands more, maybe not so fancy, but certainly just as important as the song and dance of our fabled timepiece.

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In Rochester, even these marionettes have Genesee fever.

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They perform every hour on the half-hour too, in the carnival spirit that is the timeless magic of the marketplace since cities began.

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A delight to the children, an intriguing interlude to shoppers and visitors from all over the world.

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